Fair point re: starting nuclear from scratch and politics, but I guess my question is why haven’t renewables taken off then? If it makes sense economically and has less regulatory friction, wouldn’t private businesses have started selling renewable energy by now?
Given the years of our previous federal government, i can understand it sounding like BS. Aside from this, some major providers have been refusing to extend the life of coal plants because it doesn’t make sense vs renewables
There is growing private industry support for renewables. Far more than there is for nuclear, for sure. As just one example, over a third of households in Australia have solar panels installed. That’s including all the people who literally can’t get solar because they’re in apartment buildings. In fact, it’s gotten to the point that the Energy Market Operator is calling for the ability to turn off solar remotely, because too much is being generated, and fossil fuel plants don’t like that. Feed-in tariffs for solar have already been drastically reduced to discourage people feeding solar power into the grid.
But for now, fossil fuels are still much cheaper than either, and the private sector is not generally known for its long-term outlook. It doesn’t help that our government, even our more left-leaning Labor Party, are heavily influenced by the fossil fuel lobby.
Edit: whoops. Initially said “there’s more private investment for renewables than there is for renewables”, which is obviously nonsense.
Fair point re: starting nuclear from scratch and politics, but I guess my question is why haven’t renewables taken off then? If it makes sense economically and has less regulatory friction, wouldn’t private businesses have started selling renewable energy by now?
They do… South Australia is almost entirely renewable, with natural gas generators as a backup if required
Thought this was BS, looks like it’s legit. TIL
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_South_Australia#Renewable_energy
Given the years of our previous federal government, i can understand it sounding like BS. Aside from this, some major providers have been refusing to extend the life of coal plants because it doesn’t make sense vs renewables
There is growing private industry support for renewables. Far more than there is for nuclear, for sure. As just one example, over a third of households in Australia have solar panels installed. That’s including all the people who literally can’t get solar because they’re in apartment buildings. In fact, it’s gotten to the point that the Energy Market Operator is calling for the ability to turn off solar remotely, because too much is being generated, and fossil fuel plants don’t like that. Feed-in tariffs for solar have already been drastically reduced to discourage people feeding solar power into the grid.
But for now, fossil fuels are still much cheaper than either, and the private sector is not generally known for its long-term outlook. It doesn’t help that our government, even our more left-leaning Labor Party, are heavily influenced by the fossil fuel lobby.
Edit: whoops. Initially said “there’s more private investment for renewables than there is for renewables”, which is obviously nonsense.